Sonny Liston v Evander Holyfield

Even if they were the same size, it's automatically negated because of liston's reach and strength. Holyfield is barely taller then liston. liston is clearly stronger.

 

Ah, but weight training also increases contraction speed, especially when combined with plyometrics and done systematically. It might slow him down a tad if he bulks up too much, but I suspect he'd end up looking like Hasim Rahman with a longer reach, better chin, and a lot more skill.

 

• "On a given night, Shavers can knockout any heavyweight or water buffalo" (JET Magazine, 1978)
• "Earnie Shavers takes no prisoners" ("Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times", 1992)
• (Fight vs ·Bernardo Mercado): "Legend has it that Shavers split his glove open from the force of a hard punch he landed on Colombian Bernardo Mercado"

…and quotes on Shavers' power by his opponents…

• ·Tex Cobb: "Nobody hits like Shavers. If anybody hit harder than Shavers, I'd shoot him."
• ·Larry Holmes: "Earnie hit me harder than any other fighter, including Mike Tyson. He hit me and I was face down on the canvas hearing saxophonist Jimmy Tillis."
• ·Tex Cobb: "Earnie could punch you in the neck with his right hand and break your ankle."
• ·Muhammad Ali: "Earnie hit me so hard, he shook my kinfolk back in Africa"
• ·Ron Lyle: "Hey man, that's the hardest I've ever been hit in my life. And George Foreman could punch, but none of them could hit like Earnie Shavers did. When he hit you, the lights went out. I can laugh about it now, but at the time,it wasn't funny."
• ·Ron Lyle: "Hardest he's ever been hit: Earnie Shavers. The ground came up and met me. That's all I remember."
• ·James Tillis: "Shavers hit so hard he turned horse p*ss into gasoline! He hit me so hard he brought back tomorrow. When he hit me… I was seeing pink rats and cats and animals smoking cigarettes. I was in the land of make-believe."
• ·James Tillis: "The baddest motherf*cker I fought was Earnie Shavers. That motherf*cker can make July into June and made me jump over the motherf*ckin' moon. That motherf*cker hit so hard, he'll bring back tomorow. He hit me so hard, I thought I was on the corner smoking cigarette and eating a spam sandwich. That's how hard that motherf*cker hit."

 

Assuming of course that he actually adhered to the said training regimen. Liston was no glutant for torturous sessions in the gym.

 

You seem to have gotten the wrong impression of Sonny Liston. He was a very rigorous trainer, especially pre 1962. He used to sit in a neck bridge for hours to build the muscles in his neck, really gave him extra cushion to survive bombs from bigger heavyweights.

 

You've certainly confirmed that Shavers hit harder than any fighter in his era. Unfortunately, these quotes don't help us much when comparing him to fighters who came long afterward.

 

Good point. We'd have to assume motivation.

 

as long as Night Train was playing, that mother****er would train his balls off

it was only after the first patterson fight (with no serious contenders in sight) that he stopped giving a ****

 

Prime vs Prime Liston controls fight with his outstanding jab, Evander's warrior spirt wouild be his undoing against Sonny as liston's power plays into latter rds, Liston by TKO.

 

There really was no one left. Sonny challenged Johansson in 63, but Johansson declined, then retired. Machen, Folley, Williams had already been destroyed by Sonny. Terrell was too young, harold johnson just lost to pastrano, and clay was considered dead meat walking after the cooper/jones fiascos.

 

Why not?Danny Williams said Tyson hit harder than Vitali Klitschko,Shannon Briggs said old Foreman hit him harder than Lenox Lewis,also Holyfield said that Foreman punched him harder than any other heavyweight.Fighters in my post said that Shavers hit harder than Foreman or Tyson.So conclusion is Shavers hit harder than Bowe,Klitschko,Lewis best big heavyweights in new era.

 

The more links you have in the chain, the more tenuous the conclusion gets. If Shavers had punched Holyfield/Briggs/Williams and they all said that he hit harder than Lewis or Bowe (or Klitschko), then I would have felt better about the conclusion. As it is, memories fade with time and different witnesses don't always give consistent "measurements" of power. Fighters aren't perfect when they give these statements; they don't review their entire careers, consider every fighter who ever hit them objectively, and give you a precision assessment. This is especially true when the punches come years apart.

You might make a decent case that Foreman was a massive puncher by modern standards from those quotes, though.

 

if foreman was a massive puncher then shavers was an even bigger one seeing as all their common opponents said shavers hit harder

 

bang on. he no doubt figured even a half-assed training camp was more than enough for ali (boy was he wrong). but there wasn't much out there for him, though a johnson fight would intrigue me

 

A Liston-Johnson fight was scheduled for 1956 but Johnson got injured and pulled out at the last second so Marshall stepped in and took a pounding. It would have been very interesting in 1956, I don't know if Sonny was seasoned enough to handle Johnson at the time. I post prison in 1958-1963, Sonny would have beaten Harold by knockout.